a1480: Haiti Support Group hails recent progress in the struggle against impunity. (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

Press release: The Haiti Support Group hails recent progress in the struggle
against impunity. (see below for background details)

On March 23, the Haitian police arrested Port-au-Prince gang leader, Ronald
Camille, aka Ronald Cadavre, who is charged with manslaughter in connection
with the shooting dead of Fritzner Jean outside the Parliament on 10
September 2001. Camille is currently detained in the Delmas police station. A
court appearance scheduled for Tuesday March 26 has been postponed to a later
date.

On March 25, the U.S. immigration authorities deported to Haiti the former
Haitian Army captain, Jackson Joanis, who is faces charges related to his
role in the 1993 murder of Antoine Izmery. Joanis is in police custody and,
according to the police spokesman, will soon appear in court to face the
charges against him.

These two developments are significant steps forward in the Haitian people's
long struggle to bring an end to a state of impunity, to bring human rights
violators to justice, and to turn back a tide of increasing lawlessness. The
Haiti Support Group joins with the Platform of Haitian human rights
organisations in hoping that this is just the beginning of a real coming to
grips with the people's demands for justice.

The Haiti Support Group hopes that these positive developments will be
followed by other initiatives to end impunity in Haiti. On the eve of the
second anniversary of the still unsolved murder of Jean Dominique, the Haiti
Support Group calls for immediate and forthright action on the part of the
Haitian authorities so that the guilty parties can be rapidly brought to
justice.

BACKGROUND

Ronald Camille

Ronald Camille is known as a fervent supporter of the Lavalas Family
political party. According to Haitian media reports, he is employed by the
National Port Authority in Port-au-Prince, but he is better-known as the
leader of a gang of youths from the slum area of La Saline, and has often
been accused of orchestrating violence. Human rights organisations have
denounced the government for tolerating the actions of Camille's gang and of
other pro-Lavalas Family groups that are known as chimères.

Camille first gained public notoriety when, on October 2, 2000, he attempted
to necklace* the then Delmas police chief, Jacky Nau, during a demonstration
in front of the Provisional Electoral Council headquarters.  (*In Haiti, the
term - to necklace - refers to killing of a political opponent by putting a
car tyre around the victim's neck and setting it alight.)

He is wanted in connection with the murder of another popular organisation
member, Fritzner Jean, aka Bobo, outside the Parliament on 10 September 2001.
According to witnesses, Camille shot Jean dead following an argument.
Ronald's brother, Franco Camille, claims that the death was the result of a
weapon going off accidentally. Since then, Ronald Camille has been the
subject of an arrest warrant but, apart from an unsuccessful police raid on
La Saline in late September, there has apparently been no attempt to arrest
him, and Camille has moved around the capital without any apparent concern.

On March 23, Camille was waiting at the Port-au-Prince airport to welcome
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on his return to Haiti from the Monterrey
international development and poverty summit. According to the police, he was
taken by surprise and did not try to resist arrest.


Jackson Joanis

In the early 1990s, Jackson Joanis was the head of the notorious Anti-Gang
police department, one of the worst units of the Haitian Army when it came to
human rights. Human rights groups charge that he condoned the killings and
brutal beatings of dozens of students, journalists and others.

He is listed as an abuser of human rights in a 1994 U.S State Department
report to Congress. "Suspects brought in for questioning at the Anti-Gang
Unit were regularly beaten with fists and clubs," according to that report.
"If the beating got out of hand, as reportedly often happened, the victim was
finished off and the body dumped." The report's sources were presumably the
U.S. military officers at the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince who, according
to media reports, were in close contact with Joanis during the three years of
the military coup regime in Haiti (1991-94).

In its 1998-99 annual report, the Geopolitical Drug Watch organisation,
claimed that Joanis played a key role in protecting those who set up
drug-running operations in Haiti during the 1991-94 coup years. The report
says that Fernando Burgos Martinez, a major Colombian drug baron linked to
the Cali cartel, ran his operations in conjunction with Haitian businessmen
from the capital's largest casino, El Rancho. Protection for the casino was
provided by Captain Joanis, who openly admitted that he was paid more for
providing this service than he earned as a policeman.

After fleeing Haiti following the United Nations military interventions that
restored President Aristide to office in 1994, Joanis went to live in
Hollywood in Broward County, Florida where he drove a cab. On September 25,
1995, he was convicted in absentia in Haiti for his role in the 1993 murder
of Antoine Izmery, a businessman and ardent supporter of the Lavalas movement
for economic and political change. The Haitian court sentenced Joanis to life
in prison.

In mid-November 2000, the American Immigration Service (INS) arrested Joanis
and 13 other former "members of armed forces and paramilitary organisations"
in Miami for violations of human rights made before their arrival in the
United States. Joanis' attorney argued in a Miami immigration court that
Joanis faced torture and death if he was returned to Haiti and, until this
week, he had remained in the US while his appeal was considered.


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The Haiti Support Group - solidarity with the Haitian people's struggle for
justice, participatory democracy and equitable development, since 1992.
____________________________________________